Design a Bose-beater

[Dave Jones]

Originally posted by kelticwizard
John:

So the fun is in seeing if you can make take something the same size and actually produce a sound system of some quality. I feel that was Dave's intention in starting this thread...

You got it! Our motto shall be, "It's the same size, but it doesn't suck!"

[JZatopa]

I think you guys may be looking at this the wrong way. You are all so set on getting the best sound that you want to change the paramaters of what fits his needs. Forget about the rules of how to design a good sound system and look at it as building an imitation bose setup. The real question is can you design a system just like it that sounds better then bose and costs less.

[Dave Jones]

Originally posted by DJNUBZ
I think you guys may be looking at this the wrong way. You are all so set on getting the best sound that you want to change the paramaters of what fits his needs. Forget about the rules of how to design a good sound system and look at it as building an imitation bo$e setup. The real question is can you design a system just like it that sounds better then bo$e and costs less.

You got it too.

[rjon17469]

Alrighty. Sorry for getting side-tracked.

As for small, try also looking at the AuraSound NSW2-326-8A (it's the 2" little brother to the NS3 I mentioned earlier).

In a 30 inch^3 enclosure, ported, it has a -3 at 123 Hz. In a 22.5 inch^3 enclosure, ported, it has a -3 at 140 Hz.

With these, and about 10 watts of amplification, you can hit 94 dB per speaker, or 100 dB with stereo speakers, and that's assuming single driver per speaker. If you go dual driver per speaker, you can hit nearing 110 dB with stereo speakers (at the expense of speakers that are twice as big and needing an amp that can support 4 ohm loads - easy to find).

Also sold at www.madisound.com for around $20 each I believe.

Hope this helps.

Reece

P.S. Regarding the NSW2-326-8A: I personally think the fs of this driver is closer to 220 Hz rather than 250 Hz as stated in the specs, giving you even lower cut-offs for the enclosures I mentioned.

[JZatopa]

Aura sound are supposed to be good drivers but what are all our small fullrange options. Once we have found that I am sure we could find a suitable driver for this project. Remember the bose speakers are terrible with real world spec of +/-10db through their FR. I am sure we could find a driver that does better. I think that we are going to have to forget about bass and midbass comming from the sats. I also belive that trying to use a ported enclosure will be a waste.

If you guys are worried about getting some bass that will fit this system you will have to deal with high crossover points. The only way I have found to counter act the many problems you get with high crossover points is to use stereo subs (as stated before). The only other sub setup I could see working would be a very low distortion sub but it would not work as well as stereo subs.

[johninCR]

You can lead a horse to water......

[JZatopa]

I should say that this would be a fun cheap project to build but it may be a moot point. Klipsh makes a set of computer speakers that easily rivel bose and they are not the only one. With the klipsh price of $400 it is hard to beat.

[Hess]

I'm currently making some braced test enclosures out of 1/4" hardboard for those ns3s. They'll end up being about .05 cu. ft. and measure 4.5" x 5.5" x 5" Deep.

After I get them built, if they don't sound good enough (with stuffing) I'm going to make them aperiodic.

Once I've found something that sounds good, I'll probably build more out of 1/2" mdf, or perhaps baltic birch. If only I knew how to weld aluminum, I would make some nice thin-walled enclosures, although who knows what kind of resonance issues they'd have.

Hezz, in that dual chamber aperiodic enclosure, is the entire thing sealed? It sounds like an interesting idea.

-Ian

[GM]

How does one "aperiodically tune it"? What do you mean by "gapping the driver away from the baffle"?

Greets!

Wrap the rear of the driver and stuff the cab with 1.5 lbs/ft^3 of R-19 or acoustic rated fiberglass, tuning it by spacing the driver up off the baffle (the desired gap will probably be tiny).

GM

[Hezz]

Dave and Hess,

I will try to find the web page of the guy who was experimenting with this. He was using high Qt Dynaudio drivers and was able according to his own words to get spectacular results in a moderate size cabinet in relation to the speaker size.

Now to answer your initial question. Yes it is a sealed design and allows for tuning the Qts to almost anything that you want. It uses two chambers with the aperiodic or variovent between the two chambers.

Check out my post in the dual chamber aperiodic thread that Dave started. I've posted the design information.

Hezz